


Wrap the World Around It

by Llama



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-17 21:09:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2323277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/Llama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secrecy puts pressure on Cora and Derek's developing relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wrap the World Around It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MissLouisa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissLouisa/gifts).



> The prompt I chose was dealing with the aftermath of drunken infidelity. MissLouisa/argentwolvs, I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you as usual to J and Sarah for their help.

In a movie, it would be raining when Cora comes home. 

It would be raining, and there'd be lightning, maybe, and Derek's reflection melting and running in front of him where he stands, posed dramatically at the windows. Instead he's stretched out on the couch with just dusty sunshine making him squint at the pages of his book, and the distant roar of traffic going about its business. He hates cars. Maybe he should get rid of the--

The thought is gone at the first sound of footsteps. He closes his eyes, because his face must be all creased with the squinting. Why didn't he get some sleep, because she's going to know he's been up waiting, and--

"Hi," is all she says before she kicks off her shoes, _thump, rumble, thud_ against the wall. 

The couch rocks just a little as she settles herself over his legs, but he doesn't open his eyes. He knows what he'll see: the smudged make-up, the sorry-but-not-quite-sorry-enough face. The relaxed posture of someone who has been out and taken for herself all the things Derek can't give her.

"You smell of vodka," he says instead. 

Cora snorts. "Vodka doesn't smell of anything, asshole," she says, plucking the book out of his hands and dropping it on the floor. Derek can still taste that stuff she puts in her drinks when she leans in. The kiss is stale, hovering somewhere between sisterly and distinctly _not_ that he can't quite place. "And I had a shower."

There are things he could say, but there's a crackle in the air around them and he knows that the wrong words could blow this up into something ugly. There's a reason things are easiest between them when they don't talk, and he can choose not to play this game again.

"Aren't you going to look at me?" Cora says, and her hand on his neck feels like a warning.

He traces the curve of her ribs, pulls her hips closer to him and feels her relax. "So demanding," he murmurs into her hair, his eyes still closed, and follows it up with a kiss. She huffs at him, punches him in the shoulder, and falls asleep between one breath and the next with her face in his neck.

She doesn't wake when he stands up and carries her to the bed.

 

Derek could write a book about Cora's sleeping habits.

He loves how she sleeps like a child sometimes, hands curled up to her face like she still wants to suck her thumb. He remembers her doing that when she was very small. She could always fall asleep anywhere, and so fast he remembers his parents discussing whether they should risk her seeing a doctor. He loves how she mutters in her sleep, nonsense words and random phrases. "Not the truck!" she'd shouted one night, and then declared an urgent need for a purple dragon. 

When she's stressed, like she is now, she sleeps fitfully and on her back, and Derek-- it's like those long days watching over her, all that time when he thought he'd lose her again. It's not healthy, this thing they have, or he doesn't think so. It's hard to know what's good for either of them, never mind healthy. It's a dependence neither of them should have on only one person; nothing that happened with the Hale pack's demise was natural or normal, and they were never equipped to deal with it.

They would have a real pack again now, maybe, if it wasn't for this thing, this _need_ they have for each other. Or is it the other way around? Maybe if they had that pack they wouldn't have the need – he's not sure. 

She shifts in her sleep, and he brushes the hair back from her face, strokes her cheek. He hates that it's easier to look at her when she's not looking back, but it is.

"Move over," he whispers, and she rolls over immediately, mumbling, still half asleep.

He tucks himself in behind her, palm sliding soothingly over her ribs, his nose in her neck. Her hair smells of someone else's shampoo, but she's taken one of his shirts to wear in bed, one of his favorites. The mingled scents say 'home' and 'sorry' and 'love', and he can't get enough of them.

"It's a flower," she murmurs, clutching at his hand, and Derek might be dreaming already as well, but somehow it kind of makes sense to him.

 

"Are these 'we need to talk' pizzas?" Cora pads across to the door, her bare feet still damp from the shower, and picks up a stack of boxes. "Because I'm not sure I have that much conversation in me."

"No, they're 'we're about to have visitors' pizzas," Derek says. He can hear Scott laughing down in the foyer; that was good timing. "We can talk later."

"For all the good it will do," Cora mutters, and Derek can't argue with her even though he'd like to.

"You were dreaming about flowers," he says instead, and then wishes he hadn't, because someone might have heard, and what if they wonder how he knows that? 

"Was I?" Cora's face scrunches up, puzzled, as she attacks a slice of pizza. "I don't remember."

"You kept talking about them." The door slides open to let half a dozen chattering teenagers in and he raises his voice for their benefit. "Loudly."

"I used to grow a lot of plants," Cora says wistfully. "Why don't we live somewhere with a yard, Derek?"

"I can't picture Derek with one of those little trowels, or labeling seedlings," Allison laughs. "Maybe something larger scale, like digging a field over."

"Gardenias," Cora says suddenly. "The flowers I was dreaming about. They were gardenias."

"I don't even know what gardenias look like," Stiles says, and Derek knows without checking that he's typing it into Google right now. "Oh, pretty."

"Secret love," Lydia says dreamily, and looks surprised when everyone turns to her. "In the language of flowers, gardenias mean 'secret love'."

Derek can't help glancing at Cora, but she looks amused more than anything, and her eyes are on Isaac and Allison for some reason. 

"I knew it. Fear not, Cora, you only have to say the word and all of this can be yours." Stiles gestures down at himself, almost tipping his laptop onto the floor in the process. "No need to pine from afar."

"Okay," Cora says lightly. "My bed's just upstairs, I'm sure everyone will excuse us for, what-- thirty seconds?"

"What-- I--I--," Stiles stammers out, before narrowing his eyes at her. "Oh, funny." 

Cora's smirk sets everyone else off laughing, even Derek. "I thought so."

 

It's a good night, even with the looming talk with Cora that's going to have to happen. 

Derek's just not sure how many times he can do any of this. He's not sure how many times he can sit on the other side of the room from Cora instead of cuddling her into his side like he used to before this thing between them. He's not sure how long it will be before he slips up and says or does something that will make silence descend on the room, have them all making excuses and leaving. Leaving them, leaving _him_.

He's not sure how long his relationship – any relationship – with Cora can withstand the need to keep up the platonic sibling act, not when it keeps pushing her to look elsewhere for easy intimacy that doesn't need to be kept behind locked doors.

Most of all, he's not sure how many times he can face Scott's ever-present, if usually mild and politely restrained, disappointment that he and Cora won't formally be part of the pack, but Derek won't lie or conceal something as important as his relationship from his alpha, if he has one, and he--

He has no idea how Scott would react. Or any of them. 

Scott hugs them both tightly when he leaves, and Isaac follows suit, with Stiles and Allison joining in with one-handed awkward pats either side, and Derek's grateful for their uncertainty while he gets used to this new closeness himself. 

Lydia's the last one to leave, making obvious small talk until the others have had time to get out of earshot. She doesn't have their hearing, of course, so she's startled when Cora cuts her off mid-sentence.

"So, Isaac and Allison and Stiles?" Cora says, raising one eyebrow. "That's new."

Lydia laughs and nods, but Derek didn't, Derek hasn't-- "What?" 

"I don't know any details," Lydia says, holding up her hand. "And I wouldn't tell anyone if I did. All I know is they are working things out, and they all seem happy together. That's the important thing, isn't it?"

The look she gives Derek seems to be trying to tell him something, but of course he wouldn't hold it against them, he can't imagine why she feels the need to--

Oh.

"I'd say that's the most important thing with any relationship," Cora says slowly, as if she's testing the ground. 

"We're never going to be the most conventional pack," Lydia says, and that's the understatement of the century. "But we are one, aren't we? A real one. We have each other's backs, no matter what. We take care of each other."

At the door she hesitates and turns back to look at them. "They'll work it out eventually," she says, "they're just distracted with school, and in some cases, spending a ridiculous amount of time having interesting new sex."

"How did you guess?" Derek asks, because he thought they were careful, and if anyone was going to work it out he would not have imagined it being Lydia. He's going to have to stop underestimating all of them simply because of their ages.

"It wasn't really a guess." Lydia smiles. "I know there's only one bed in this place."

Derek and Cora never do have that talk.

 

The following Friday it's raining hard when Cora comes home. There's even a flash of lightning that makes Stiles jump away from the window and squeeze back into his spot between Isaac and Allison.

Cora sits on the floor between Derek's legs while he dries her hair off, and nobody says a word when she stays there, leaning against him while she demolishes two whole pizzas by herself, winning Allison $5 from Scott. When her breathing deepens Derek pulls her up into his lap and lets her snore gently into his neck, her weight warm against him while the rain beats on the glass.

When the others look over, Stiles smiles at Cora, Scott gives Derek a nod, and Allison leans over the couch to whisper that she's glad he and Cora made up their differences at last, whatever the problem was. Isaac mouths 'cute' at Derek, and then looks worried, which makes Derek want to laugh. Between Isaac's situation and his own, he's never been _less_ worried about someone hitting on his sister.

Lydia doesn't do or say anything, but before she leaves she hands Derek a package. Inside there are some pots and a few packets of seeds, and he knows Cora will love them.

He's not surprised to note there are no gardenias among them.


End file.
